Two local authors, and parents to children with special needs, provide insight and advice through these stories. Below, meet the authors and find out a bit more about their books.
What Matters: Reflections on Disability, Community and Love
By Janice Fialka
Inclusion Print, 2016, $25
When Huntington Woods mom Janice Fialka’s son, Micah – who has an intellectual disability – was a kid, he was told that he had a low IQ and would be virtually unemployable.
Now, Micah is a 32-year-old public speaker and teaching assistant at Syracuse University in New York, and his mom has written a book about his life. What Matters has advice and guidance for families with disabilities and also aims to teach the value of inclusion.
“It was our intent to give very concrete ideas to create a classroom, work or other setting in which everyone can participate,” Janice says.
A Parent’s Guide to Autism: Practical Advice. Biblical Wisdom.
By Ron Sandison
Siloam Publishing, 2016 $10.35
Ron Sandison, a Rochester Hills author, is married with a baby, works in the medical field and is a professor of theology. But his future wasn’t always bright. At 18 months, he was diagnosed with autism. His mom quit her job to give her son every opportunity.
Today, Sandison is paying it forward. His book, A Parent’s Guide to Autism, gives insight on handling challenges like bullying and meltdowns, plus embracing each child’s strengths, all through a Christian lens. “(Autism is) a different way of neurologically processing info,” he says. “It can’t be cured, but it can be refined, like glass.”
